The Surge

The Hubbard Park parking lot early on a Saturday morning. 

Visit #1240, Saturday 4 April 20, 0650-0945hrs, 5.6miles, 17.8lbs. of litter. Temps in the low 40's, cloudy.

The surge in visitors to Hubbard Park as a result of the Covid-19 virus is causing problems.

"Professional" users of Hubbard Park know the secret to avoiding crowds, and parking problems, is to visit early in the morning.

My pre-7AM start qualifies.

As I started my hike at the closed gate across the road, I found a newly installed trash can.

Obviously and unfortunately, a significant rise in park use means an increase in litter. A good decision. The trash cans I usually use at the playscape have been put out of service.

I hiked up to Merimere Reservoir to see a black lab playing fetch the stick with their owner.

Fido quickly dropped the stick and came out of the water to greet me, receiving a dog biscuit in return.

I turned to see a fallen tree across the trail.

Fortunately, removing the tree from the trail only required some muscle, and no power tools.

With awareness of the increased park usage, I headed up to Castle Craig to clean up the parking lot.
Enroute, I was definitely finding more litter than usual.

Up at Castle Craig at seven in the morning it's easy to practice social distancing. Meriden is OUT THERE, and I'm up here.

I was going to hike a trail down to Merimere Reservoir but when I considered the surge in litter I was collecting, I decided to walk the road down expecting to find more trash.

After crossing the north end of Merimere Reservoir, I found a number of felled trees lining the roadside. I'm not sure of the reason for dropping these trees; they're not very useful because they're not hardwoods. I'm not sure if this is work of the parks department or the water department. The water department is currently clearing trees from a brook flowing down from up near Castle Craig down to the reservoir.

I returned to the gate and used the newly installed trash can to drop my bag into.